


Foundling

by micehell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, holiday related but no schmoop here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-11
Updated: 2008-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lost and found and lost again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundling

She found the crèche buried beneath a shopping bag of tattered paperback and a deflated basketball in the Salvation Army donation box on the corner of Ash and Welcome. She usually found things that were little more than junk, being right outside the city limits of Lawrence instead of the city proper. The overpass was on the next street over, and their donation box was often the last stop of people leaving town, ridding themselves of anything they didn't want to carry with them. But the crèche wasn't junk, carved out of old wood, smooth and skillful, with detail that set it apart from the usual holiday kitsch. It was a little damaged, soot dusting over it, caught in the curlicues of the sheeps' coats, in the baby's swaddling, but Vera figured a good cleaning would make it good as new again.

And even though it was closer to April Fools than Christmas, Vera whistled carols as she worked, thinking that someone was going to find themselves a real bargain at the Salvation Army today.

~*~

Dean would stare at her in fascination as she worked, sitting still for up to an hour at a time, which was something of a miracle for him. John just kept teasing her about her nesting instinct kicking in. Still, even though he didn't understand why she was spending so much time on it, he would come and get Dean when he started to fidget, playing catch with him until dusk while she worked on the crèche.

John also teased her about her skill with a knife, asking her if her father had thought she was a boy when she was little, but she just smiled at him, knowing he wouldn't believe her if she explained.

Or maybe she was just afraid to tell him.

Sam kicked, and she placed a hand on her belly hoping to quiet him down. He was like Pelé when he got going, and she didn't need the distraction today. It was at least two months before he'd come, and it was more than half a year past that before she'd need a crèche, but she still wanted to finish it before he was born. She remembered how much of her time Dean had needed in those first months.

Beyond even that, though, she _needed_ to finish it. Needed it like the cross she wore at her neck, the wards she'd carved in the crib, and the salt and goofer dust she had to keep hidden from John. They were poor guards against what was coming, but she would shroud Sam in as much grace as she could.

Sam kicked again, hard, and she could almost imagine it to be a protest of what she'd done. But it had seemed the only choice at the time, her loss too great to bear. The life she'd done her best to turn her back on having stolen the life she'd chosen for herself.

As she twirled the knife, spiraling it to make the curls of a sheep's coats, she just hoped she'd done enough to counter the consequences of the deal she'd made. Because Sam was coming, but something followed behind him.

Sam started kicking with both feet, and she could almost imagine him to be running away. But there'd be no running away for him, too small and young and _hers_. She gripped the knife tightly, knuckles white around the handle, and shook the thought away.

Mary started on the next curl, hands sure and steady with a skill she'd dreamed of leaving behind. No matter what deal she'd made with that yellow-eyed bastard, there'd be no running away for her, either.

 

~*~

He was still new to his parish, and he shouldn't have stayed away so long, but he'd heard talk of a psychic in Lawrence who'd sensed a very powerful demon, and that had needed to be investigated first hand. When he'd scheduled the trip, however, he hadn't planned on her being so strong a psychic. Nor quite so handy with a spoon. So while it had been a useful trip, he was fast running out of time before he needed to be back at the church.

Which is why it was stupid to stop at the Salvation Army store he saw as he was headed for the highway. He knew it was dumb, the exterior of the building, the neighborhood it was in, leaving little doubt about the quality of the merchandise he was likely to find inside. But something about it, some instinct that he'd only recently learned to trust, was telling him to go in and look around.

He never did find out what it was his instinct had been urging him to, but he reckoned it was a good trip anyway. He'd made another connection for the hunters' network and he had only been a little late getting back. Plus he'd got a bargain on a beautifully carved crèche. All in all, Jim figured he'd come out ahead.

~*~

It reminded him of the one his mother had been carving before… well, before. He'd watched her forever it seemed like, wood stripped away to show the figures hidden inside. He'd wanted her to show him how to hold the knife, to show him how to find the things inside the wood, but he'd known instinctively that she wouldn't do it. Probably would have told him it wasn't safe. As if that meant anything.

Dean wanted it. He wanted it for all the memories that he knew he was already losing. The small things about her that had meant _Mama_ to him, and that he had to struggle to bring to mind now.

He wanted it for Sammy, because he'd never even really known her. Too small, too toothless, too babyish. All Sammy was ever going to have of Mama was what Dean could remember. And he remembered this, the promise of Christmas that the wood had meant. Soft and warm and smooth, like his mother's touch. He couldn't get the touch for Sammy, but he could get this.

He wanted it for Daddy, too. Daddy who remembered all too well. If Dean could get this, if he could make Christmas be what it once had been, then maybe he wouldn't forget. And maybe Sammy would get a little of what he'd never had. And maybe Daddy wouldn't be so unhappy anymore.

But Daddy didn't have money for extras, and they needed food. So if Dean wanted it, there was only one way to get it. Last year he'd have been afraid that stealing the crèche would have been a sure way to keep Santa away, but he'd learned a lot since then. He was pretty sure there was no Santa anyway, but he figured even if there were, the salt lines would keep him out. So without that worry, all he had to do was get Sammy to start screaming, and get Daddy to hurry up and get them out of the store, and then Dean could use the distraction to slip the crèche into the bag of old clothes and shoes that Daddy had bought.

Two weeks later Daddy was still unhappy and all Sammy would say was _Dean_ , no matter how much Dean tried to coach him. Dean left the crèche in their hotel room, not even looking back.

He would just have to hold on to the memories all by himself.

~*~

Jess had been the one to find it. A small thrift shop in a small town, something that her mother had wanted to visit just on a whim. It had been sitting on the shelf, an oddity in July. But she'd looked at the details, the folds in the swaddling, the lines in the wise men's clothes, and wanted it.

It had been special for her, something she alone had gotten to put out every year for Christmas. She'd always treasured it as _hers_ , but for Sam, who she knew she was going to share her life with, for Sam, who seemed to have so few things that had any sentimental attachment, she could give it away.

She'd been so excited when she'd first thought of giving him this piece of her life, her love, that she hadn't been able to wait to have it sent down, not even caring that Christmas was still two months away. She'd had her mother mail it to Angela's apartment instead of theirs, though, remembering Sam's strange ability to be able to accidentally stumble across any gift she was hiding from him.

This year, she was really going to surprise him.

~*~

John found it in a thrift shop right outside Palo Alto. He had no idea how it had wound up there, but he recognized it all the same. No mistaking that knife work.

Looking at it made him miss the boys. Made him want to call them and talk to them, maybe even about Mary. Tell them all the little things he'd never gotten around to. The knife work that he'd only understood after it was too late. The vague memory he had of the night Mary's parents died, and what he was afraid it meant.

Even now he couldn't understand, knowing what she knew, how she could possibly have done that. If she even did. If there was one thing he'd learned since he'd taken over the life she'd given up, it was that deals with demons were Vegas odds, and no one won anything but the house.

But he didn't call them, his sons, all he has left of the woman he knew he would have made a deal for, if only he'd been given a chance. He couldn't, not now, too close to finally finding the thing that had killed their mother. To close to being able to kill it himself.

He couldn't stop looking at this tiny little piece of her, though. The baby Jesus that was so obviously modeled on Dean as a baby. John smiled at that, amused at thinking of Dean as anything close to divine. But his smile died as he looked at the baby in the manger, wondering again what deal she might have made. What the price truly had been.

And what it meant for Sam. Two women had died burning right above him. That… wasn't coincidence. John's hand jerked shut, pulling away from the crèche, his knuckles white as he shook the thoughts away. He wanted the boys near, under his protection, with such a fierce need it hurt. But he couldn’t see them, not now. John needed to stop that bastard for what he had done to Mary. He needed to stop him before whatever plans he had for John's sons could succeed.

One day, maybe, he'd have time for happy memories again, but in the meantime he had work to do. He walked away from the crèche, and for the first time in twenty-two years, he wasn't looking back at all.

~*~

Becca had had to fight a very large woman in very shiny clothes, who had only the barest idea about hygiene, to get the damn thing back. She'd thought about smacking Angela also, but as irritating as the idiot had been, she couldn't really blame Angela for what she'd done. Angela had been Jess' friend for years, since grade school, even choosing Stanford over Berkley, just so they wouldn’t have the bay between them.

Becca hadn't known for sure, not then, what it was like to lose a friend that close to you, like another part of you, but she'd known her own grief, and had empathized with Angela's decision to pack away all the reminders.

What Becca hadn't been able to understand is why Angela hadn't just given the crèche to Sam. She'd known it was for him. They all had, since Jess had been babbling about it for about it for weeks before she... well, before. But Angela had seemed to be angry with Sam, as if she'd blamed him for living when Jess hadn't. And maybe that was it, as dumb as it was, and as angry as it would have made Jess if she'd been around to see it. But regardless, it was the reason that Becca had had to trek all the way over to the Sunnyvale Salvation Army store and have the fight with the shiny woman.

And all over a gift that would never be given.

She really had meant to give it to him, that last piece of Jess' will. But when she finally saw him again, things had been… hectic. She'd forgot all about it until he had probably been hundreds of miles away, his brother eager to put St. Louis behind him.

She really had meant to give it to him for over a year after that, always reminding herself to tell him about it in their next email, the next time he came. But she'd known with each day gone, and each week without a reply, that he wasn't coming back. It had taken seeing his name on the news, though, his and Dean's pictures side by side, the word _Wanted_ above them, before she'd finally accepted that he was as dead to her as Jess. She cried then, a little, but it was more over the memory than any real grief, the pain diluted by long absence. And it was only with the slightest pang that she put the crèche in the box her mother was collecting for her yard sale.

Becca never even thought to ask if it had sold.

~*~

He was so Godda-… he was so fucking tired, months of worry and fear and sorrow still wearing him down. But at least it had only been months for him. Go-… Hell, at least it hadn't been decades. He should be thankful.

It was hard to be, though, with Dean struggling not to fall apart before him, and Sam not being able to help. Hard to know that it could all have been avoided, the nightmares that were forty years of memories that Dean could never ever forget, if Sam had just ignored Dean's objections, his own fears, and taken the first step down that path when it might have done some good.

_Sam, if I didn't know you, I'd want to hunt you._

Before there were any angels, besides his better ones, to tell him what the consequences would be.

_The only reason you're still alive, Sam Winchester, is because you've been useful._

It was hard for him to be thankful when the hope that had sustained him for so long had gone. The thought that if he just did enough good, if he just did _enough_ , that it would mean more in the long run than something that had been done _to_ him, that he'd never had any control over. But that had died with Dean, and it certainly hadn't been resurrected by Castiel.

_Sam Winchester. I've heard a lot about you, too, the boy with the demon blood._

It was hard to be thankful when he had to wonder, when his time came, how long he would last before he got down off that rack. Before he put others on it.

So, yeah, he was G-… _fucking_ tired, but this he could still do. Give Dean the Christmas that they'd tried for last year, thinking it his last. Because with the lives they led, maybe this time it would be. And neither of them had any illusions anymore about what came after.

He'd found most of what he needed at the little thrift store, more junk shop than bargains. The money would be tight, but Sam had long given up getting uptight about they had to do to get by, and they'd get some more.

And he needed that crèche, perfect in some way he couldn’t quite define, just an instinct that told him it was important. Sam needed that crèche because if he could just surround them with enough _grace_ , maybe he could guard them against what was coming. And while the cross that was branded on his hip since that demon in Boise had got the drop on them, the prayers he knew in five different languages, and the holy water he kept in his flask were scant tools against it, he'd take what he could get.

Sam reached for the crèche, but hesitated, almost afraid to touch it. Something so profane touching even a token of the faith he'd used to have, he could almost believe the little voice inside his head that said it would burn if he did. But some instinct was still saying it was perfect, and Sam wanted to give Dean something besides memories for Christmas this year. Something that would make him smile again. He put the crèche in the cart, and pretended not to be relieved when all he felt was wood.

~*~

Jack found it buried among some balled up wrapping paper and a bag full of old paperbacks out in the dumpster behind the hotel on Cinder. He put it in his shopping cart, carefully hiding it against prying eyes, because the others were always watching, and he didn’t want to lose it. Not when it was so perfect.

That's what he told Jeremy, too, when he got back to their alley. It was perfect, so pretty in every way. There was even a dog in it that looked just like Jeremy. Or at least like Jeremy looked sometimes, because he liked to put on new faces from time to time. But Jack figured dogs were just like that, and he didn’t let it bother him none.

He showed the dog all the details in the crèche. The way the sheep coats curled in such a delicate way. The embroidery that had been carved into the wise men's robes. The baby who seemed almost to breathe. Perfect.

Jack fed it into his trash can fire, along with the books, warming his hands over the perfect fire.

/story


End file.
